Chasing Scarlett: A Breeder Romance

10.TheFuneral

Two years doesn’t dull the pain of seeing your ex-husband and ex-best friend at your father’s funeral with two children. Two, healthy human children with rosy cheeks and beautiful smiles. Isabel walks up to me, her black dress flowing behind her and I’m glad she doesn’t bother with the pretense of grief. She never liked my father.

“Scarlett,” she says, matter-of-factedly. “I am deeply sorry for your loss.”

Cameras flash, and I merely stare outside, at the absurd amount of flowers by the corner of the door. If only they knew how much father detested flowers in his house.

When I don’t respond, she speaks again, “I’ve been trying to…reach out to you for a time. You just disappeared. I wanted to—”

“Apologize for trying to kill me?” I angle my head in her direction. Something flickers in her hazel eyes as she watches me and she seems to hold the infant in her hands tighter. “Apologize for f*****g my husband and stealing my life?”

“Xan was never—”

“Mine?” I stare behind her and I see Alexander watching us warily. Having seen the beauty of the Fae, Lycans, Wolves, and a couple of Vampires, I’d think he’d look basic to me, but he doesn’t. He looks like my husband. He looks like the man I gave my virginity to, the man I fell in love with and started a family with. He looks like the man who’d serve me breakfast in the morning and kiss me until my breasts were heavy and aching, my thighs slick with c*m. He looks like the man I’d loved more than myself.

He looks like pain.

His grey gaze meets mine and he looks away sharply, but not before I see the surprise and guilt in his gaze. Isabel steps up, blocking my view of him, and when her son turns back to look at me, he begins to wail, inching out of the way like I’m some monster.

“Dorian doesn’t like strangers much,” she says, but I don’t miss the ways she lays emphasis on the name. When Gracie got pregnant, all three of us had gone on a trip, and on the sand of the beach, under the stars, we’d tried to think of baby names to cheer her up. I’d suggested Dorian, and Gracie and Isabel had looked like they tasted lime. I made it clear then that I loved it and would name my first son, Dorian.

I smile a little. “Of course.”

She seems bothered that I do not react the way she expects me to. She wants me to yell at her, in front of these many people. She wants me to lose my composure. She thinks she is the crux of my problems. She thinks I care for the press.

There is something in the pit of my stomach, so dark, so angry. It rumbles every now and then, begging, pleading for me to stick my teeth in the pounding pulse of her neck to tear it out. It pleads for me to find the Fae who thought killing my father and luring me here was a game. Perhaps, it was the brothers, or their counterparts. It pleads for vengeance on every wrong that has been done to me.

“Let it go, Scar,” Isabel says unkindly. “It’s been two f*****g years. Alexander is my husband and his kids are mine. The accident…” She stops herself and looks around. When she is sure no one is eavesdropping, she continues, “I’m glad you didn’t die. I was angry and scared and I’m not proud of the decisions I made, but I knew if you told Kingsley, he would try to kill me and Alex. I did what I could to ensure our future. That, more than anything else, you can understand.”

Amusing, is what this is. I c**k my head. “If you were so scared of what my father would do, why did you ensure that I’d find you two that way? You knew I would be home early.”

She shrugs. “I don’t know, Scarlett, I thought you needed a wake-up call from all of the, Alexander loves me and I’ll have his babies and I was f*****g tired of hearing you talk about yourself, your perfect little life. I believe they call it jealousy.”

“Ah,” I say, pulling out the petals from the flower in my grasp. “I’ll be taking over my father’s business starting next week.” I smile at her. “You know what that means for you and your husband?”

Her complexion pales. You know, I’ve never properly explained how much of a wonderful, gullible i***t I used to be before I found them f*****g. I was so kind and stupid. Every time I had a bad reaction to whatever Isabel did to me, she’d convince me that I needed my pills. I was the type of woman whose foot got stepped on and I’d apologize instead. I was meek, silent, patient. But then, I died. And now, I’m grieving, and it all started because Isabel thought her jealousy was enough reason to get another human being killed.

“Scar,” Isabel starts, her voice a notch higher, and Alexander must hear the distress in her voice, because he walks over, putting his arm around her shoulder. So, rather than having to say it to Isabel alone, I tell her and her husband, “It means, you’re both f****d. I’m pulling out my investments, and be sure that I will move the heavens and earth to ensure you sink under.” I reach out to touch her sniffling son, and he cries so loud, the guests turn to look at us. I don’t mind. I don’t care that they’ll probably say tomorrow that I was harming the babe.

“You’re glad that I didn’t die?” I muse, as she stumbles a step back into Alexander’s waiting arms. “You’ll be wishing something different by the end of the month.”

I walk a little, stopping before Alexander, and I reach up and kiss his dusky cheeks softly. He stiffens and I smell something odd rolling off him. Longing. Ah, interesting. Must be all of the changes my body has undergone in the past year. He smells like he would cheat on his wife if I so asked for it. I whisper against his ear, letting my lips brush against his earlobe, “Get your family the f**k off my property.”

Not waiting to check if they’ll leave, I make my way over to the back of my father’s sitting room where the bar seats, just as lonely and dejected as I feel.

“Scarlett!”

I stiffen and wince as Grace blocks my path. She’s prettier than I last saw her, a little more refined too. Her mother-in-law’s constant bickering must be starting to get to her. She stares at me like she wants to bawl and hold me, but she doesn’t—which is so unlike Grace. Her lips purse. “Why won’t you take your calls? Where have you been?”

A numbing sensation crawls up my spine and my shoulders tense. I look back, subtly sniffing the air. Nothing. Rolling my shoulders, I return my gaze to Grace’s. “I…uh.”

“The f**k does ‘uh’ mean?”

I shrug. I don’t have it in me to respond or be held accountable by her. Or anyone else. “I don’t know, Grace. I’m too godsdamned tired to have this conversation. I’m sorry I didn’t take your calls. It’s been a rough couple of years for me and I can’t fit it all into one sentence. So, pardon me while I go empty out my father’s bar and drink myself to stupor.”

Her eyes soften and when I try to make my way past her, she takes my fingers and squeezes. “I’m here, Scar. Always, if you want to talk.”

I don’t respond or let myself flinch at the contact of her skin as I pull away. It’s been too long is anyone touched me. Ignoring the sympathetic look from my guests, I make my way to the bar and pour myself a drink because I’ll lose my head if I don’t drown out the violent tingle under my skin.

Shot after shot, but nothing. I abandon the glass at some point and drink directly from the bottle, indifferent towards the paparazzi taking pictures. They’ll call it grief or whatever. For me, it is way more than that. It is anger in its darkest form. When the alcohol touches my tongue, it tastes like blood. That is how much I’ve begun to thirst for a kill.

I’m on my sixth glass when I feel a pressure in the back of my mind. Someone’s here, the crown says into my mind, no longer upset about me locking her in a box, and I straighten, senses alert. I observe the room, searching for a different aura. Humans all have one aura. Blue. Anything different is something I’m going to have to kill.

This, is why I didn’t want to return. And this funeral is a beacon that shouts, “I’m right here, f*****g assholes!”

I don’t find anyone and I begin to relax again when a voice I don’t recognize whispers in my ear, “Found you.”